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Image have just announced a big line-wide celebration of Invincible in March. Really, go and check out the gallery. There’s so much fun stuff here.

We asked Chloe Brailsford to do a cover for us, and – as you see above – she has excelled.

If you want to secure a copy it’s details are…

Die Loaded #5 Cover C Invincible Team-Up variant by Chloe Brailsford - Lunar Code 0126IM8081

If you want to know more about DIE: Loaded, here’s its microsite.

Is “microsite” a thing? Let’s pretend it is.

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It’s also the week of The Power Fantasy #16’s order-cut off on Monday 2^nd. Speak to your retailer if you want one – either Caspar’s cover or Morgan Beem’s alt.,

We’ve tried hard with this book to reward it as an ongoing, and that month by month hit. It’s great in trades, but it’s got a certain magic in having it in spaced out. Responses to 15 were very much what we hoped for, with a whole lot of “What happens now?”

I guess if you are tempted to see What Happens Now? In real time, this is the chance to get on it, and have it. I’ve talked about Watchmen and how it hit me, but I do chew over what it would have been like to be actually reading it monthly, and get issue 11. The logical end to that sentence is the arrogant “this is your chance” but I can’t bring myself to say it.

Anyway, I plan to put out a big instagram post with a bunch of teasers that look a bit like this…

...but a lot more. You’ll recognise this panel from issue 15. We will be a little coy over anything in 16 - we’re only going to release a single page for previews.

I also really want to use the Adagio for Strings with a donk over it. We’ll see. I am sort of staring it, tilting my head, and thinking that it is basically what we’re doing with this book, putting a donk on Dostoevsky.

Out Feb 25^th, and our Lunar Code is 1225IM0383

It’s not too late.

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Between now and the next “real” newsletter we’ll be dropping the next Script Club. On January 31^st, I suspect. What’s Script Club?

Upgrade now

Script Club is explained in this news letter, but basically me sending a monthly newsletter that includes one of my previous scripts (or similar length of writing). This is $5 per newsletter (So won’t be charged in a month I skip). I’ll always let folks know what the script is in advance, so they can nope out if they want. Oh – and it will be charged by Lemon Ink, our company. Thank you, everyone.

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I had a chat with Dave Richards about DIE: Loaded and The Power Fantasy over on his patreon. Go have a read. It’s a long one. To choose a couple of bits…

...honestly, we’re going to press on #16 in a couple of weeks. We’re handing it in at Image on the 10th. So, at the moment we’re genuinely still deciding. And, honestly, I’d rather not say. I like the idea that people will turn to the last page in issue #16 and we’ll tell you how it’s going to be.

This is a story about the end of the world. So, keeping that tension for the readers of, “Is this going to continue?” has gone on long enough that it’s become part of the project. I’ve only realized that now. It’s, “Does the world continue? Or do we all die?” [Laughs] So, we’ll decide.

and

The other flip of that is, obviously jumping into Die is a big ask. In Die Loaded #1 you’ve got a lead character who doesn’t know anything either. That’s another really good reason, because this character will discover the world.So, for people who don’t know the world that’s their way in. And people who do know the world get an ironic thrill by seeing her discover it. If you’ve read Die you know more than Sophie does. You know about the Fallen. You know what they are and what happens if you die. These are things Sophie doesn’t know yet and you’re waiting for the shoe to drop

Go read.

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Forthcoming on Many Sided Media’s patreon feed is a one-shot of DIE RPG I ran for them. They do a bunch of great public facing stuff, so doing something for the Patreon was a great way to spend an evening. I’m running Total Party Kill from the manual, and I think it ended up bleak, weird and funny. Plus some really disturbing stuff, as is DIE’s wont.

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• We’re pulling together PR stuff and similar for the DIE RPG: Metadungeon launch – Stephanie is working on the cover, which is always fun. Sign up here for notifications, and also click if none of the previous sentence means anything to you, as everything is explained herein.

• Marsh Teeth (which sounds like the sort of character name that would turn up in one of their games) writes about reading Lord of the Rings as an adult, and what they take from it now, for better or worse. This got me thinking about if you moved the comic relief role around the fellowship instead of dumping it on Gimli. Dude Where’s My Kingdom? Aragorn, etc.

• The first part of a big interview with Leigh Alexander over at romchip, the game histories journal, prompted my her Gamers Are Over essay turning 10 years old in 2024, but really about everything, and how we got there, and why it’s all on fire. It’s long, and really worth carving out your time, when you’re in a space to go there. If you were around there, it’ll depress and bring a lot back. If you weren’t, it’s an education that she really shouldn’t have to teach.

• Grant Howitt writes about the development of Salt, the next game in the Spire/Heart universe – specifically, the many games which happened before, and were played with before being abandoned. There’s a lot to be taken here, no matter what field you work in – when does an Idea become The Next Thing? That’s a real thing, and I wish I had an actual answer.

• This has just appeared online – There’s an Image Creator Storytelling Masterclass at Waterstones on March 9^th. Sean and Jacob Phillips, Bryan Hitch, C and myself. You can get tickets now!

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I’ve had enough encouragement that I will likely be writing the “what things are you thinking when you take over a character?” article I suggested last time. If you go check out my bluesky, you’ll find some broad chat around it.

However, I’m not going to do it this week. The day is getting squeezed, and I want to make sure I get as much cleared as possible. Katies just messaged me about something she really needs to know, instantly. Plus thingskeep on jumping – for example, I’ve just been told there’s going to be a fourth printing of the first volume of DIE, which is great… but it has crept up to us. We want to do a new cover for it, replacing the existing one. It was only with volumes 3 and 4 that we realised what a DIE trade cover should look like, and planned to bring the other volumes in line when we went back to print. We did it with the second printing of the second trade a few years ago, and would love to do it on this – but time is going to be tricky, so expect e-mails to be flying when Image get up in Portland.

That’s just one example of a minor thing that’s arrived in my inbox – when you’re moving in the indie space, and especially Image’s space, there’s a lot of that. There is a lot of fires, and my brain is an ineffective foam sprayer.

On the bright side, work progresses well – I’m onto DIE: Loaded #9, and should wrap a first draft tomorrow. We’re trying to get scripts to Stephanie as early as possible, as she finds sketching and painting such different exercises, it’s possible she may be able to do them both at once. Maybe that won’t work, but it never hurts to get issues done early, right?

After that, back to polish the script I finished last week, and then either another script of the WFH thing I’m doing or some broad plotting.

This is now becoming the equivalent of me writing my shopping list, and chewing over problems if I can’t get the milk. I mean, I try to be honest in this newsletter, but honest isn’t always interesting.

Ah, Comrade Jim has just run the front door. That sounds like a good prompt to stop.

Speak soon.

Kieron Gillen
Bath
28.1.2026